Lenten Live Series 2026 #3 – Spiritual Formation
by Anne, ARK
God created order in the environment. People studying the solar system see divine order in the motion of stars, planets, the moon, etc.; because God created it there is heavenly order.
We continue to strive toward greater connection to Christ and awareness of his presence with us.
Heaven loves order. Heaven wants to bestow and create order and help us live an orderly existence in our time on Earth.
The human body is a miracle of order. Heaven is always replicating order, from the large scale (solar system) to the small scale (the microbiome of our intestines). There is an extraordinarily complex order in our microbiome, which we now know impacts our mental health.
Heavenly paradox: creation is infinitely complex and divinely simple.
There are layers of the divine will, and the layers of knowing God are infinite. When we get stuck on the externals of a religion, we can become “landlocked,” because our spirit wants to be free to go further and further into our teachings. When you allow the spirit to bring you deeper, everything is not as it seems.
We can inadvertently paste religious teachings on people as though people can be judged at a surface level. This is wrong. We need to know we are loved. In that simple truth, we start to grow and develop more deeply into the love God lavishes upon us. This brings forth from us grace in relationships. A relationship you think is failing, doesn’t have to fail when you add God’s love to it.
God hopes to create order and harmony in our relationships.
We may sometimes think we know everything there is to know about people. We make assumptions about people. We should avoid such behavior.
What comes from God is always a mature stream of esteem. God values and respects us and delights in us. That’s what other people need from you. They need to know that they are full of promise and potential, that we value them. When people are struggling, they need this esteem the most. God hopes that because we recognize him in the room and trust him, we will help him create order for other people and offer them esteem.
We give people a glimpse of how God interacts with us in the way we interact with them. Christ is acutely interested in each one of us. We need to be interested in the people around us; we sometimes run through life in our own little world, mistreating people in small interactions.
Families and spouses especially need eye contact and smiles. If you imagine walking into a room in which Christ is sitting, you know he would look up at you and smile. If we are not looking at people and smiling, we are not reflecting Christ to them. We must be reverent about the people closest to us. Sometimes we are nicer to strangers than we are to our family and friends; people put their pleasing face on for acquaintances and think they can take that off and be themselves, be more relaxed with people who know them better. While we can relax with family, we should save our best selves for the people most important to us.
People should know we are Christians by the quality of our connections. Christ is going to come through us and make secure, productive connections. Christians should have the highest interpersonal standards.
Regarding order in our environments, and decluttering, the more space you can make in your environment, the freer your mind is to think about God. Why does God like space and order in our environments? Because we become calm in order. And when we become calm, we can think – about what God wants, about other people, about how we are loved, etc.
We do not need to talk about God a lot where people are not able to take it in, but we need to love other people actively, in a way that helps them to feel they are loved and remembered. Place order in your environment as best you can. If you’re not tidy and you’re anxious about putting order on chaos, take one small job, like a single shelf, and start there.
A three-part recommendation for decluttering: pick things up, throw things out, preserve what is precious.
